Many modern devices rely on batteries to provide power necessary to operate the device. Consumers using such devices generally desire to use the devices for longer time periods in between recharging the batteries. As such, there is a continual effort to perform operations of the device in more energy efficient ways, even as the applications performed by the devices become more sophisticated, and in some cases, require more power.
Modern devices typically include multiple power consuming circuits such as a central processing unit (CPU), a bridge circuit (e.g., Northbridge and/or Southbridge), memory, a graphics processing unit (GPU), a display, a network interface circuit, and/or a fan for example. Due to the various operating parameters associated with the multiple power consuming circuits, it can be difficult to design a power management system. For example, each power consuming circuit would likely have a white paper describing its capabilities and parameters that can be adjusted in order to reduce power consumption. As such, a designer (e.g., engineer) would have to interpret each of the white papers and design a power management scheme based thereon. This process can be very tedious and time consuming.
Accordingly, there is a need to solve the problems of the prior art in order to provide a method and apparatus that simplifies the design power management systems having multiple power consuming circuits.